April 10, 2025
Cathedrals of Belem, Brazil
I typically go in every Catholic church I can when traveling. Not just because I am a Catholic, but the architecture is generally some of the best you see in any town. My friends always indulge me for the same reason, none of them are practicing Catholics or any organized religion, for the most part. I have found a group of residents about 8-10 of us that are practicing Catholics, that like to go to mass together, whenever we are in port, on a Sunday. I really enjoy the camaraderie.
I really have met a great group of people, after we finished the parrot island adventure a group of 3 of them Silja, Memo & Callie, insisted they walk me to mass at the above Belem Metropolitan Cathedral, since it was in a dodgier part of town and then they rush back to get the tender to the ship! We were all so tired, but they knew it was important to me! Really touched me. The Cardinal ended up saying our mass and I was able to use my translate app to get the gist of most of his homily.
On Monday, we went to check out another Cathedral in Belem. This one the Basilica de Nossa Senhora de Nazare has quite an interesting legend attached to it and thousands of people make pilgrimages to it yearly. The story goes that many years ago a fisherman Placido Jose de Souza (who lived on the site where the Metropolitan Cathedral is now located) was fishing in a river (that used to run on the site where the Basilica is currently located) and he came upon an ornate cloth or cloak that had the image of the Virgin of Nazareth on the banks of the riverbed, picked it up and took it home. It disappeared that night while he slept. He went back to the river the next day and the same thing happened, at end of day he saw cloak, took it home and it disappeared again. This went on for several days.That cloak is now the main attraction at a huge celebration parade every year. The cloak is wrapped around a statue of the Blessed Mother and it is in a special case, adorned with flowers and paraded throughout the town. We couldn't see the original as the church is under renovations including the vault where the original is stored. But there were fakes and images all over to get a sense of the richness of the event.
